Washington Talk; No $435 Hammers, but Questions

By ERIC SCHMITT, Special to The New York Times

Published: October 23, 1990

WASHINGTON, Oct. 19—
In the long and fitful annals of Pentagon procurement overhaul, two recent episodes on Capitol Hill deserve footnotes.

Last week, an Air Force brigadier general, Robert W. Drewes, told a House investigative panel that a rare review of the Northrop Corporation, one of the largest military contractors, had found systemic production flaws in every program examined, including the Stealth, or B-2, bomber.

For the Air Force, which wants to buy 75 of the radar-evading, bat-winged bombers for $63 billion, the public castigation of one of its biggest suppliers was unprecedented.

Two days later, General Drewes's civilian boss, Air Force Secretary Donald B. Rice, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that things weren't so bad after all. The panel had been hastily summoned by its chairman, a staunch B-2 advocate, Senator Sam Nunn of Georgia.

In fact, Mr. Rice said, problems like engine designers not telling structural engineers about design changes were being corrected. "The review is not a basis for decisions about the B-2," he said.

Real overhaul, Pentagon critics are asking, or business as usual in the military contractor business and politics as usual in Washington?

After all the talk of changing procurement procedures, including some vaunted new efforts by Defense Secretary Dick Cheney to streamline operations and to insure that weapons work before they are bought, the back-to-back hearings only raised more questions about the Pentagon's ability to clean up the $130 billion-a-year acquisition process once and for all, and its appetite for doing so.

"In the broadest context, the problems still seem to be there," said Paul F. Math, director of research, development, acquisition and procurement for the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress.

For the most part, the days of $640 toilet seats and $435 hammers are gone. The scandals of the 1970's spawned commissions, studies, reports and -- eventually -- laws to promote cost-saving competition among contractors, limit cost overruns and centralize purchasing authority in the hands of one acquisitions czar.

But even the best intentions don't seem to be working well. As Representative Nicholas Mavroules, a Massachusetts Democrat and champion of a career acquisition corps at the Defense Department, puts it, "If Congress writes a 10-page law, the Pentagon will write a 100-page regulation."

The new rules forced a greater degree of competition in the contracting industry at a time when it was already suffering from overcapacity. Some companies dropped out, rather than confront the bureaucratic snarl. Marginal contractors won awards with low-ball bids, and then failed to meet the contracts' standards.

Meanwhile, the dwindling military budget has set off a mad scramble among Pentagon weapons-buyers to secure money for their pet projects. The Pentagon, for example, is pressing ahead with a $4 billion electronic radar-jamming device that has failed crucial flight tests on fighter planes it is designed to protect.

Congress is not blameless. For the last two years, Mr. Cheney has sought to cancel the Osprey aircraft. The $26 billion cost is just too high, he says. And for two years, Congress, led by lawmakers from Pennsylvania and Texas, where the Osprey is being made, has financed the program.

Pentagon officials throw up their hands in frustration and complain of pork-barrel politics and Congressional micromanagement. But when left alone, the Pentagon often cannot seem to control its own contractors.

Mr. Cheney was embarrassed earlier this year after he told lawmakers that the development of the Navy's new A-12 carrier attack plane was on time. A few weeks later, the General Dynamics Corporation and the McDonnell Douglas Corporation said technical problems would put the plane at least a year behind schedule.

But to military historians, the current obstacles are no surprise.

"It's like punching a feather pillow," said Gordon Adams, director of the Defense Budget Project, a research organization here. "The feathers just redistribute themselves."